In Depth: Perfectionism and recovery in the moment

Member Tony Alcock’s dual career as a life and performance coach and double bassist makes him uniquely placed to understand a musician’s pursuit of perfection, the impact it can have on performers and how we can overcome our unhealthy tendencies. He recently presented at our Healthy Practice Webinar on the topic, here he summarises what was covered.

Perfectionism – we probably all have our own definition of what it is and how it impacts our lives as performers. But as an imperfect definition, let’s start with:

“The relentless and deliberate pursuit of improvement, whilst never being completely satisfied with the results.”

This is laudable in many ways, if the consequence is high achievement – helping us get the work done and achieve our goals. But the title suggests that “Perfectionism” is a problem and “Recovery in the moment” a cure, which isn’t necessarily the case. This is similar to the model of western medicine, which takes patients from feeling unwell to functioning or as near our normal as possible.

On the other hand, positive psychology, which I use with my clients, aims to improve thinking and wellbeing. Focusing on the problem only makes it grow, so my approach is to help clients develop their self-confidence and self-authority whilst clearly envision and design their life and performance goals.

Perfectionism

Coming into professional orchestras in the late 80’s, I was green and impressionable, soaking up information like a sponge, but not always knowing what was good or bad advice. There are several urban myths that come to mind that distinguished leaders, teachers, conductors impressed:

“You are only as good as your last performance!”

And to misquote Bill Shankley, the famous Liverpool football manager:

“(It’s) not a matter of life and death, it’s far more important than that.”

This mentality, coupled with modern recording techniques, exposes us to a wealth of perfect recordings, which impress upon young minds how perfect the stars are. Winning competitions, auditions, jobs and the glossy social media market leads to the assumption that everything needs to be perfect. So, let’s look at the pitfalls of being a perfectionist.

Perfectionism is a form of compulsive behaviour, which can reduce the level of performance because what you have signed up to is unattainable; you are always striving and straining for more, never content. The level of self-expectation is unrealistic and unachievable, leading possibly to inhibitions such as procrastination, lack of satisfaction, disengagement, anxiety, overwork, loss of confidence, demotivation, self-blame, poor self-esteem and reduced productivity. What’s more, we can become quite defensive when criticised or given feedback because we have been beating ourselves up to be perfect. Many performers experience this in competitions and auditions where they may get in their head because of fear caused by perfectionism.

Success habits

Of course, there are some ‘success habits’ of high-achieving performers which correlate with perfectionism. There is no doubt that putting in the hours is a necessity, but it shouldn’t become all-consuming. In many ways, we just need to get over ourselves. To quote Kenny Werner from his excellent book Effortless Mastery:

“… you have to discover a reason for living that is more important than playing! You need a sense of self that is stable, durable and not attached to your last solo. And, paradoxically, that makes you play better! It removes the consequences and puts everything in perspective. The pressure is gone… and you play better.”

This antidote to perfectionism takes a holistic look at life, rather than trying to find a curative system. People are experts on their own story because they live with it every day. Performers are amongst the most creative and resourceful people around, constantly adapting to changing environments and circumstances. It’s important for people to view themselves as the whole person; mind, body and spirit but also as fully capable and unbroken. There is a massive uplift in energy when we approach things from the perspective of our strengths rather than our weaknesses.

The perfectionist may be exasperated learning a new piece; “I can’t play this!”, maybe even seeing the process as a destination rather than the journey. Someone attached to excellence may say “I can’t play this to my desired level yet and the mistakes I make on the way teach me things.”

Guided visualisation

One possible exercise in a coaching session to help with this could be a guided visualisation. Imagine that you had to give a speech in the Royal Albert Hall to a live audience, which is also being broadcast internationally. You are just about to go out and tell the world, with conviction and passion, what is important about music and performing and what you say will have a huge impact and influence. Whilst you are thinking about this, remember how you felt when you first discovered that music was fun; the wide eyed curiosity and delight. Put some of your key ideas down on paper, what is your big message? Putting things down in writing helps formulate your ideas into a coherent whole and you will find yourself articulating things that come from a very deep level-from your inner being. What we are really doing here is articulating your values. The rules by which you run your world.

Step outside yourself

Often when we are indulging perfectionist tendencies, it is all about the ‘I’; “I need to do it this way”. Whilst your own contribution is important, looking at mission and purpose opens up many more doors and is liberating. I love the phrase “it’s not about you!”. Imagine how free you would be without the burden of feeling watched … “What other people think of me is none of my business!”

As a musician, there is the relationship with the composer and the music (sparking curiosity, discovery, expression and emotion), then there is the relationship with fellow musicians and the interaction with them. Then there is the listener and the observer; what is the message for them through the music? What is that lived experience of the performance? We are curators of fine jewels helping them shine and helping others see their beauty. What do you experience as a performer with the realisation that you are adding value at a deep emotional level to people’s lives?

Plan your goals

Planning and goal setting are important parts of our journey, the focus of which helps prevent us getting stuck in perfectionism. The important thing to keep in mind whilst planning and goal setting is the creative element, joy and curiosity.

The big agenda is asking yourself how do you need to be in order to achieve your goals? What energies do you need to be in? In a way, this is far more important than the specific steps and actions. If you are in a fear perspective, you are at a disadvantage compared to someone in the energy of complete immersion, commitment diving into the warm water of their dreams.

The little agenda is about the action steps you wish to take and holding the dream throughout the process – often the job of the coach to bring this back into focus. So, for a musician, the little agenda (which to them seems huge) may be about planning a recital in six months or preparing for an audition, but the big agenda is about personal growth, confidence, living in the moment, and so on.

It is this conscious holding of the dream that helps maintain motivation and avoid the drudgery of slavish adherence to hard work without purpose.

Recovery in the moment

Perhaps recovery in the moment is possible when you have invested in coping strategies and looked at different perspectives over a period of time. Let us assume that something has not gone to plan in a performance and this has knocked you off course. This is normal, all humans make mistakes, so the challenge is to see how quickly you can come back into awareness and focus. Sometimes it is possible just to observe the thoughts that are here but not hold onto them and thereby avoid developing emotional attachments to them.

“Isn’t that interesting, I just noticed a stress thought or a panic thought…. What’s here now?”

This is a technique used in mindfulness and meditation, present moment awareness without attachment. There are many advocates and exponents of this but I found The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle to be very helpful, as well as an app called ‘Headspace’.

It really helps in the moment to mitigate the fight/flight stress response because there is no escalation of the feeling. It’s a cognitive intervention of stress thoughts.

Another very valuable technique from mindfulness is coming into awareness of the breath, again without attachment. The idea is not to correct faulty breathing but to kind of leave things alone. Your body knows how to breath if you get out of your own way. It is very important to exhale fully and gently, like whispering the “ahh” sound over a breath. There are of course exercises, such as slow abdominal breathing, that you can practice, which can help to induce calm.

The seven essential attitudes of mindfulness are beginner’s mind, trust, patience, acceptance, letting go, non-judging and non-striving. Just introducing these attitudes to your life and performance will enhance both.

Anything that turns your attention outwards and away from poor-stressed-me mode can be helpful. Changing perspectives and listening at a deep level to the sounds coming into your ear, watching, and observing movement, the touch and feel of instrument or chair.

Exercise 1: Grounding

This is a shortened version of the 5,4,3,2,1 grounding exercise. Think of the following:

• Five things you can see: conductor, music, shoe, light, ceiling.
• Four things you can touch.
• Three things you can hear.
• Two things you can smell; the result of toil and maybe the brass section (valve oil, of course).
• One thing you can taste… A mint… Unless a blower; you may have to miss this one.

Exercise 2: Tapping

Another technique that is possible to use discretely in a moment’s inactivity is EFT – emotional freedom technique or tapping. The full version is tapping on various points of your head and body that correspond to acupressure points, whilst repeating a saying or mantra for wellbeing. For example, “Even though I feel stressed, I love and accept myself completely” (silently during a performance, of course).

A more discrete version uses the mantra whilst tapping the thumb five or six times on the nearest side of each fingernail. There are two more cognitive techniques which can help recovery after an event that has not gone well and with skill and practice you can use a shorthand version to help in the moment.

Exercise 3: ABCDE

I love the ABCDE technique from the Psychologist Martin Seligmann, famous for his work on positive psychology.

• Adversity: define the stress situation, who, what, where and when.
• Beliefs: What is the story that you have developed around it.
• Consequences of those thoughts on your emotional state of being.
• Discussion: Cognitively challenging yourself to discount some of the beliefs; ”it’s not true because…”.
• Energy: How the energy changes and what is available.

It’s a wonderful technique for challenging self-talk. If a stranger was to come up to you and tell you that your performance was rubbish, you would feel affronted and challenge them. However, we allow our self-talk to be much more abusive and consistent and much of it goes unchallenged.

Exercise 4: Four questions and turnaround

Another excellent discourse tool is Byron Katie’s ‘Four questions and turnaround’.

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do you react when you think that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then turn it around by saying the opposite of the initial statement and seeing what truths there are in that.

There are many other coaching techniques to boost leadership skills, team building, identifying with useful character traits and developing archetypes. Being aware of what takes us towards our dreams and what takes us further away.

I feel that self-awareness, self-acceptance and compassion can go a long away to making performance the joy it can be. The gratitude perspective enables us to see the gift to us and the world. Finally, humour is a great resilience tool, makes the world more fun and lightens the load.

The saboteur cannot live with humour. What we are after is excellence not perfection. The relief that this realisation brings makes us sprout wings!

For more information about Tony’s work as a life coach https://lifecoach-tonyalcock.com/

For more information about our Healthy Practice Webinars and visit www.rsmgb.org/events